what if the way we started made it something cursed from the start
by Hermiione
Summary: The Unholy Trinity. A Heartrender with more of a conscious than he thinks he has, an ancient creature known to some as the Black Heretic and a girl who just wants her world to stop burning. They share a bond, forged in blood, bone and magic. An Ivan/Darkling/Alina fic. Contains both m/m and m/f scenes!


Alina woke up for the first time in what felt like forever. She'd almost thought she'd died she remembered the chapel, the way the world seemed to bend under the weight of the nichevo'ya.

She remembered with a jolt that she'd almost died, which was probably why she felt like she'd been run over by the Darkling's coach. She rolled over in bed and searched her mind.

Visions of Ivan, his bear claw amplifier hovering over her watching guard and the Darkling sleeping in her bed, healers in their red and grey …..wait … that wasn't a vision, that was a memory.

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and rang the bell for a servant. She was surprised that there wasn't a healer in the room with her.

Moments passed and she realized she's in a comfortable nightgown. Someone must've changed her. She saw someone in red open the door, she hoped it would be a healer… But his cuffs were black not grey.

" Moya tsarista ," Ivan's eyes search her face but don't seem to find anything worth remarking on, "the healers said you would be up today."

"Where's the Darkling? Is he dead?" Alina said weakly. Her voice was creaky from disuse.

An unreadable expression passed over Ivan's features. "No, he's not dead."

She felt a pang of sorrow run through her, she'd been unconscious for days? Weeks? Months? And it had all been for nothing. "Where's Mal?"

"Dead." Ivan said flatly, the corners of his mouth curving into a cruel smirk.

"What… What ?" Alina whimpered. How could this be happening? He'd been on his way to safety, he'd been going into some cave in the chapel!

Ivan looked like he was delivering the best news in the world, the sick, arrogant bastard.

"H-how?" She said in a trembling voice. Her mind was attempting to go a thousand miles an hour. Unfortunately she was still feeling woozy and it was hard to form coherent thoughts.

"The Darkling killed him. He killed them all. No one but you and the Darkling made it out of the church alive."

Tamar… Zoya… Genya … David… Tolya.

**Gone** .

Alina whimpered shakily, she couldn't even get out of bed she was so weak.

"I'm going to go get the Darkling," Ivan said, turning away from her.

She was too weak to stop him. In fact she promptly leaned over the side of the bed and got sick on Ivan's boots. Her stomach felt empty and achy. She'd probably been surviving on grisha nutrition potions and she lost weight so easily…

"I'll have someone bring you tea and food. You should rest," Ivan said brusquely. He waved his hand and a swath of shadows covered the mess and it vanished.

Alina gasped. No, no! This was all wrong. Ivan was supposed to be dead, and unless she was very mistaken he'd just used the Darkling's merzost.

If she could've ended his life right then and there she would have.

"You have.. his power?" Alina said faintly.

"I have a lot of things, Sankta. "

She didn't know what to say to that. She hated every grisha that had sided with the darkling, she hated herself for being weak and not being able to kill the greatest threat to Ravka in history.

Ivan left without another word and Alina looked up at the ceiling, her head swimming. Mal was dead . She started to sob softly into her pillow. Oh, how miserable life was, and she was bound to feeling so lost and lonely. The Darkling would never consider her and equal, and she wasn't sure she wanted to be.

" Solnishka ?"

Alina sniffled, "I'm not your little sun!" But even to her own ears her voice sounded broken and small.

The Darkling looked a lot better than he had in the chapel, he looked like he'd regained some weight and as always was elegantly put together, "You were out a long time," he stood at the foot of her bed.

Alina curled in on herself, this was the worst thing that had ever happened to her, "How long?"

"Two months, it was touch and go for the first few weeks," he said it with clinical indifference, as if it was a minor inconvenience that she had almost died.

"I don't want to be here, you killed my friends, you tortured me, you enslaved me!" She tried to put her heart into sounding venomous but it came out squeaky and broken.

"I did it for the good of Ravka." His voice was cool, and deadly calm, although a muscle in his jaw feathered when I looked closer and it seemed to costing him something to not show his emotion.

"Why did you kill Mal?" Alina pleaded there had to be a reason.

"Because, he tried to haul your half dead body off to Saints knows where. I knew you'd die if you didn't get help from a grisha healer. Is he worth your life?"

"He would never do that," Alina said softly.

" Well he did ," the Darkling replied, finally showing a hint of emotion. His tone was venomous.

Alina began sobbing again. All her friends were dead, everyone she had ever loved was dead. What was going to happen next? Were the Saints going to fall out of the sky? Would Ravka be consumed by the Fold? Her mind was running amok with possible catastrophies and she just wanted to hold Mal again. To feel his warm skin against her hand, hear him say that she was his nation. She would burn down the world to dig him out of the ashes.

But she was getting the distinct feeling that Mal wouldn't do the same for her. He'd been so afraid of her power, her need for the amplifiers. How could he not love everything about her? She couldn't bring back the sickly girl she'd been (although her current state was pretty close) and she didn't want to think of Mal as a killer. Someone who would rather have her dead than alive and powerful.

Was there even any truth to what the Darkling said? He had so many reasons to lie to her.

She hadn't realized it but as she'd cried she'd been pulled into his arms. When she realized she pushed away, "Just get out, get out! GET OUT!" She sobbed her grief giving her the strength to shout.

"I've never turned away from you Alina."

"I'm asking you to just.." A hopeless sob wracked her body, "Please, I'm begging you."

The Darkling left.

The next day dawned bright and early. She had just finished dressing (with help from a healer) and was sitting down to breakfast.

She was exhausted, she'd spent most of the night crying and tossing turning. When she finally did sleep she dreamed of Mal's body burning in the church. She thought of Genya's beautiful hair singed and her and David saying their first and last 'I love you's" she felt like a toy that had been broken and belonged in the trash.

The door to her room opened and her shoulders sagged. "It would be nice if you knocked," she said not knowing who it was.

"I don't knock," Ivan replied.

Alina gave a sigh, "Don't you have someone's heart to crush?" She turned her head to look at him. He was tall, not as tall as the Darkling but close. He had piercing hazel eyes and sharp cheekbones and a strong jawline.

She loathed him.

Ivan quirked a brow, "No, unless you want your heart crushed by my good looks?" he deadpanned.

Alina shook her head, of course he had to be a fucking pig. She had to listen to her least favorite person in the whole world at such an early hour and while she was grieving. She'd managed to stop crying long enough to have some tea.

"Did you bury Mal?" Alina asked carefully.

"No, the Darkling killed him and burned the church with the bodies still inside, and in case you're wondering, the tunnels collapsed."

She felt a dark ache in her chest. With shaking fingers she tried to sip her tea, and only managed to slosh it down the black kefta and burn her tongue.

"Alina, you have to realize that Mal would have rather had you dead and to himself than let you live and be with the Darkling. Is that what you wanted? To be dead?" Ivan asked.

Alina took a cloth napkin and started mopping up the tea on her kefta, "I would rather be with Mal, yes." She wanted to ask him about his new power but this didn't seem like the right time.

Ivan nodded. "You are Ravka's saving grace, you need to recognize your place." He stepped up to the chair she was sitting in.

"I don't care about Ravka, I don't care about the Darkling. I care about my friends . Who are all dead now thanks to you." Her tone was hard, but she felt herself breaking from inside.

Ivan sighed. He pulled up a chair. "You're going to be seeing a lot of me, the Darkling has made me your personal guard." There was something deeply wrong about that. Mal was her personal guard, not this creepy heartrender. She hated him, and as far as she knew, he hated her too.

"I don't need a guard any more than you do."

"You were just in coma for two months. You cannot so much as summon a sunbeam. What would you do if there was an attack?"

She narrowed her eyes, "You mean what would I do if someone came to save me? I would leave and never turn back."

Ivan looked nonplussed, "Believe it or not a lot has happened since you surrendered to the Darkling. And sobachka is not the only one who might come to call. The Fjerdans have declared war."

She took a shaky breath, "I cannot have this conversation right now." But she was shaking, war, real war not just border skirmishes… so many would die.

"That's fine," Ivan shrugged, and her eyes caught his broad shoulders. He stood up and made for the door, "By the way, you need to eat that whole tray of food. You've been surviving on the healer's nutrition potions for two months and you've lost a lot of weight."

Alina shook her head, "I'm not hungry."

"I'll send a healer in, they'll give you a potion to make you hungry."

Alina grumbled.

A few moments later a healer walked in, she was youngish and she uncorked a bottle, it was blue and tasted like sugar. She swallowed it down and slowly felt her hunger returning.

The Darkling visited that night, and she wasn't sure what to say to him. He was a murderer.

"I don't want to see you." Alina snarled at the Darkling.

"Eternity is a long time to hate someone," he sat down in one of the armchairs in her sitting room. She was curled up by the fire, it was thundering and lightning out and she could only think of her friends. My dead friends.

"Eternity is a long time to grieve," She said more evenly.

"This otkazat'sya is not worthy of your grief. He was going to ensure you never got your eternity."

"Enduring eternity with you is my worst nightmare. "

The Darkling sighed tiredly, "You will come to understand that loss is part of eternal life."

"You're missing the point!" Her voice rising, "I don't want eternity, I want to be with Mal! I want-" But what did she want? She wanted Mal but not Mal as he had been, not the Mal that was afraid of her powers and afraid of her. Not the Mal that thought she outshined him. And she didn't want to sickly and tired and too thin anymore either.

"Alina, I think you should ponder what it is the tracker would've given you. If you had married him, would he have been faithful? If you had children with him, they almost certainly would've been grisha, and I think we both know he would've resented them. Not to mention, if he didn't die by my hand, then the hand of time would have certainly erased him from history."

She was crying because he was right. Mal loved the orphan she had been, but not the grisha she had become. A part of her didn't care. She still loved him.

The Darkling was suddenly crouching in front of her, and he was wiping away her tears, "I've seen what you truly are, and I've never turned away. I never will. Could he say the same?"

She wanted to say that no, Mal had never turned away, but… he had . She settled for a half-truth, "He loved me, he didn't want to see me become like you ."

The Darkling rolled his shoulders and stood, "I do not appreciate it when you lie to me, Alina."

Then he left.

The Darkling was exhausted. Which was why when he laid down to go to sleep that night he just about cut Ivan in half out of shock.

"It's not your night to be here." The Darkling said stiffly.

"I missed you."

The Darkling huffed, he could count the number of times someone had said they missed him on one hand. "It's cold."

"You wouldn't be cold if you were wearing anything."

A faint pink tinge colors Aleksander's cheeks and he extinguishes the candles. He was amused that Ivan had the nerve to be here out of the blue.

Ivan removed his clothes and settle into bed with the Darkling. The Darkling settled his cheek on Ivan's bare chest and inhaled his scent. Ivan smelled like a cool breeze on a fall day, clean and crisp.

The Darkling would know, he gave that cologne to Ivan himself.

"Do you think she hates me?" The Darkling asked.

"You know she doesn't, she's grieving."

The Darkling trusted Ivan's judgment, "She was so broken in that church, and seeing her cry over that lowly otkazat'sya who would've killed her… it was too much."

Ivan brushed his fingers through The Darkling's hair.

"I think she'll come around."

Alina wasn't coming around til the Darkling or Ivan as the Darkling had expected. She locked herself in her room for two weeks. Of course, the Darkling had a key and he checked on her at night when she was sleeping but he let her grieve. He owed her that much.

Ivan was posted outside her door and the Darkling gave strict orders that if she emerged she was to be brought directly to him.

On the fifteenth day Alina appeared in front of the Darkling, brought by the oprichniki. Her eyes were puffy and red rimmed, she looked, if possible, even thinner than she was when she'd woken up. She looked like that filthy otkazat'sya was trying to murder her from hell.

He wasn't sure what to say, he'd been so worried.

"You should probably say something before I lock myself away again."

"You will not lock yourself away. I've been patient, I knew you needed to grieve and I gave you space."

"You came into my room while I was sleeping, don't you think that's a little creepy?"

"It was a necessary precaution."

"A necessary precaution my-"

"Alina, please, go eat something, I know you've been turning away your meals."

"I'm not hungry when I don't summon," Alina sighed.

"I'll make sure you get something from the healers for that. I want you to take care of yourself."

She averted her eyes, "Of course."

"Are you ok?" He asked softly.

"W-What?" She stammered.

"I'm asking how you're feeling?"

"I'm exhausted, I'm in enemy territory and I haven't had a decent meal in two and a half months, but I'm fine ."

The Darkling stood, and she saw he wasn't wearing a shirt under his kefta. "I have a search party looking for the Firebird, you'll be whole again soon, I promise."

She rolled her shoulders and walked out.

A week later, Ivan opened her door at seven in the morning like he always did. She was so, so exhausted from staying up and crying. There was something bone-deep about her fatigue though. She knew it was at least in part from not being able to summon.

"Good morning," Ivan said brusquely.

Alina pulled a pillow over her head.

"Alina, you need to get it together. I'm not a babysitter so if you're going to act like you're a toddler than we need to get you set up at grisha preschool," Ivan said venomously.

She pulled the pillow off her head and gave him a rude hand gesture.

He plowed on with the news of the day as if she hadn't done anything though, "I'm afraid that I've spoken to the healers and you won't recover until you have the third amplifier." Ivan said.

"What do you mean?" She said groggily

"You damaged your powers when you tried to kill the Darkling. It's not even supposed to be possible but you seem to have a knack for idiocy."

Ivan rang the bell for a servant.

"I'm going to throw the covers off you in three… two…"

Alina ripped off the sheets and tried to snarl at Ivan but it came out a groan.

"Let me get dressed without your blessed presence."

"My presence is blessed? Why thank you Sankta."

She shoved him bodily from the room and began getting ready for the day.

Around lunchtime the Darkling walked into her sitting room without knocking through a connecting side door.

"Do you ever knock? Have you heard of privacy?" Alina snapped.

"I'm… concerned that your ability was damaged." He said with preamble.

She was shocked. The Darkling was never concerned about anything. "Well maybe if you hadn't waged a civil war-"

"I waged the war you required me to," he said too patiently.

"I require nothing from you, Darkling."

He looked nonplussed, "Do you remember the nights I came to you?"

"Vividly."

He came closer, and she wondered what he was trying to accomplish, "I slept in your bed, I could've kissed you."

She sighed, " Wanting makes us weak . Isn't that what you told me that night at the fete?"

"You mean the night I almost-"

"Enough!" She shook her head and unexpectedly a wave a of grief consumed her. She wished desperately that she had been able to give Mal her first time. She wanted so many firsts with Mal but she could never have them now. It made the knot in her chest constrict terribly.

"I will nurse you back to health, and you will be whole again, Alina." He was hovering above her now and he was close enough to feel his body heat.

Alina didn't want to hear his voice, didn't want to feel the warmth radiating off his body, because that was far too human for the monster she knew. He leaned in and tried to kiss her hair but she wrapped her fingers around his throat weakly.

His eyes are fathomless as she spoke, "I hate you, I will never serve you and I do not want Ivan creeping around. If you ever gave a Saints forsaken fuck about me then you would understand that being in your presence is like trying to swallow poison." She burned with hatred for him. How did they do this dance? She was so exhausted and she just wanted to stop fighting and have him leave her alone.

He gently brushed her hand away from his throat, "I know you're grieving Alina."

"I'm fine."

"You're falling apart at the seams and I might be King of Ravka and the Black Heretic but I cannot bring Mal back."

Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes, she felt the burn of them in her throat, in her lungs. "He didn't want me dead, you're lying."

"I have so many things I could lie to you about Alina, and I have lied to you about some things, but this is not one of them."

"You always hated him and now he's dead, isn't that a bit convenient?"

The tears cascaded down her cheeks and she tried to pull away from him but he holds her to his warm, lean frame.

"He turned away from your light, my Alina. He turned away and he tried to take you from this world and I gave him a quick, clean death. He never suffered and I regret every day not drawing it out."

You're an abomination . Alina wanted to say, but it came off as a soft sob and she clung to him. How could she let him touch her? He was everything wrong with Ravka, everything wrong with her life.

"He didn't want me dead, he just didn't want you to have me, and I can't blame him."

" Alina . You don't seem to be connecting the dots. Mal was dragging you into the tunnels underground where there were no healers, no food, no water. You would've been dead in an hour." The Darkling actually sounded angry.

She wanted to raze the world just to bring Mal back, but Mal, according to the Darkling, had tried to take her away from medical care that saved her life.

She pulled away from the Darkling and looked into his deep gray eyes, "You brought Ivan back from the dead."

"Ivan was never dead, he was close but not so close that the healers couldn't save him and I may have aided in that process. People don't come back to life after they've died."

She wanted to forget. She didn't want to think about being the sun summoner or her shitty love life or even the fact that she felt a sliver better in his arms. She lets herself be held. Because she's broken and this man is the only other person in the world who understands her bone-deep weariness.

"You scared me in the church, Alina." The Darkling said, his voice raw. "There were no healers and you were dying. I thought I was going to lose you."

"Maybe it would be better if I was with Mal."

The Darkling held her out as if he could not believe she would ever even entertain such a thought.

"Don't ever say that. I forbid it."

"It's true."

"You're in shock Alina. You need some time."

"I don't want time, I want to have my friends back."

The Darkling let me go, "I won't let you destroy yourself for the sake of some treasonous grisha and an otkazat'sya ."

"Just get out." She said shakily.

He left and she went into her bedroom for a nap.

Ivan was pacing outside the Grand Palace. He hated pacing. He also hated tobacco but he was smoking a clove cigarette to ease his nerves. Hopefully, the Darkling wouldn't notice.

Alina had taken ill thirty minutes ago. No one knew what had happened, only that one moment she'd been having tea in her room with the Darkling and the next she was on the ground, half dead.

It was clearly an assassination attempt, and there were very few people who had access to Alina's food. Ivan had laid waste to every single person who might've had contact with her food. The Darkling was in rough shape.

"I really hope that's not what I think it is," a cool voice said from the pathway from the grand palace.

He snubbed out the butt under his boot. "Of course it's not."

The Darkling stepped out of the shadows and Ivan wondered how long he'd been watching.

"How bad-"

"She's ok. The healers got to her just in time."

Ivan looked at the Darkling, "So it was an assassination attempt?"

"Yes," the Darkling's voice was shaky and Ivan took another clove cigarette out of his pocket.

"I know you want one."

The Darkling gave a long-suffering sigh, "I despise tobacco. It smells terrible."

"Mmm, that's not what you said in bed last night."

The Darkling turned a faint shade of pink, "fine."

Ivan lit the cigarette and gave it to the Darkling. The Darklings free hand slipped into Ivan's hand.

"She's so powerful and I don't know what I would do if I lost her," the Darkling said around a mouthful of smoke.

"You won't lose her, however, we're going to need to vet our kitchen staff better."

The Darkling simply stood in silence and smoked, holding Ivan's hand.

"Who do we suspect?" Ivan asked as the Darkling put out his butt.

"Fjerda. They declared war just four weeks ago. West Ravka is also rebelling, they might have tried to eliminate her so we couldn't expand the Fold. West Ravka is going to pay for their loyalty to the Lantsov line and I think they're trying to get rid of Alina as a weapon."

Ivan squeezed the Darkling's hand, "I'm going to look at some reports, our first engagement with Fjerdan troops is coming soon."

"I want you to come to me tonight," the Darkling said softly.

Ivan kissed the Darklings cheek, "of course."


End file.
